Archaeologists at a former burial site in Jordan thought that one of his team members could suffer heat stroke when he suggested some flints that he found could represent people. But now their discovery could change the way scientists think about the Neolithic Near East.
More than 100 of the unusual flint artifacts dating back to around 7,500 BC have been discovered at Kharaysin, an archaeological site a few miles northeast of Amman in Jordan.
The archaeologists who found them now think that the artifacts may be early representations of real people and may have been used for ancestor worship. They also think the figures could shed light on why representations of humans have spread in the Near East for about 1,000 years. However, experts contacted by Live Science were not entirely convinced that lumpy stone artifacts were used in ancestor worship rituals, although they do not believe it is out of the question.
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After one of the team digging at Kharaysin unearthed several of the flint artifacts, each about 5 centimeters long, he proposed that they show rough human figures, with a projected head flanked by two notches on either side that could represent the part upper shoulders and hips
His idea was met for the first time with skeptical smiles, said archaeologist Juan Ibáñez of the Milà y Fontanals Institution of Barcelona of the National Research Council of Spain.
“The team reacted … with jokes about how much sun it had received on its head,” Ibáñez said.
But as the team found more of the oddly shaped flints, they began to take the idea seriously.
“We recognized that they were something consistent and previously unknown,” Ibáñez told Live Science in an email.
Strange figures
In an article published on July 6 in the magazine. Antiquity, Ibáñez and his team describe how they came to see the flints as individual representations of specific people, despite their rough appearance.
Research shows that the distinctive “violin” shape of the strange artifacts is similar to the shapes of Neolithic sculptures from the Near East that unequivocally represent people.
The team statistically compared the dimensions of the Kharaysin flints to those of the human sculptures unearthed at ‘Ain Ghazal, a Neolithic archaeological site a few miles away, and found that they had a similar violin shape.
“The most skeptical archaeologists on our team had to accept that, most likely, they were [human] figurines, “said Ibáñez.
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The Neolithic community in Kharaysin used flint extensively to make stone tools, including cutting blades and scrapers. The two notches that archaeologists have interpreted as shoulders and hips could have been used to attach the flints to a handle. In that scenario, the flints could have been used as a weapon or tool. However, the flint artifacts had no edges that could be used for cutting, and there were no signs of wear, suggesting that they were never used as tools.
In addition, archaeologists found the strange flints primarily in the burial area of the site where human burials were conducted, Ibáñez said.
Excavations show that many of the graves were opened after a burial, and parts were removed, often the heads and long limb bones. Then people used the bones in the rituals, before depositing them in pits in the cemetery, he said. Offerings such as stone bowls, knives, and other tools were also deposited at the same time.
“We believe the figures were part of this ritual paraphernalia,” said Ibáñez. “They were probably made and used during the rituals of remembering the deceased.”
Neolithic changes
Although depictions of animals were common until the early Neolithic period, Ibáñez said, depictions of people only became general after about 8,500 BC, and Kharaysin’s figures could explain why.
If the figures were evidence of ancestor worship rituals, an increase in ancestor worship across the region could explain the increasing frequency of human representations, he said.
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers created some earlier human representations: the so-called Figures “Venus”For example, up to 40,000 years ago, but they were fertility symbols that did not represent real people, he said. “Our Neolithic figurines are related to a cult of the deceased.”
Related: Photos: 5,000-year-old Neolithic statuette
The relationship between living people and their ancestors would have been important in the early farming communities of the Neolithic period, where social groups were rooted in specific territories, he said.
However, some other archaeologists who were not involved in Kharaysin’s research are cautious.
Karina Croucher, from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, who studied Neolithic burials in other parts of Jordan, said she accepted that flint artifacts were human figures. But she said that funeral practices could represent an attempt to “keep the dead close,” rather than being a form of ancestor worship.
Alan Simmons of the University of Nevada, who led the excavations of many of the Neolithic sculptures in ‘Ain Ghazal, said the interpretation of flints as human figures “was not unreasonable.”
However, “the suggestion that these ‘figures’ may have been used to remember deceased individuals is open to other interpretations,” Simmons told Live Science.
“Perhaps these were tokens, game pieces, or even ‘fetishes’ as seen in North American Zuni contexts, “he said. But” there is no doubt that this discovery adds more depth to the complexity of Neolithic life. ”
Originally published in Live Science.
